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Post by gregory on Jul 31, 2007 2:12:14 GMT -5
Accio AK-47!
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Post by IceJedi5 on Jul 31, 2007 2:14:08 GMT -5
I wrote a fanfic once it was about me going into Hogwarts with a duffle bag full of submachine guns...and well...you get the picture. You ended up in an orgy with Harry, Herminy, Snape, just to name a few? |
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Post by gregory on Jul 31, 2007 2:17:02 GMT -5
I read a story about some guy who copied a chapter out of Pride and Prejudice and slightly changed it. He sent it to some publishers and only one editor noticed it was plagiarized, the rest rejected the story. I suspect the others might've noticed, as well, but editors are a closed-mouth lot. If you get more than a form letter, you're almost publishable. The one who commented about the plagiarism must've been in a strange mood. |
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Post by Sonny on Jul 31, 2007 2:17:23 GMT -5
I wrote a fanfic once it was about me going into Hogwarts with a duffle bag full of submachine guns...and well...you get the picture. You ended up in an orgy with Harry, Herminy, Snape, just to name a few? No. I handed them each a gun and they decided to become an hero |
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Post by IceJedi5 on Jul 31, 2007 2:21:11 GMT -5
pics or it didnt happen
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Post by Angel on Jul 31, 2007 2:25:43 GMT -5
Agree. Show me proof.
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Post by gregory on Jul 31, 2007 2:28:52 GMT -5
Hitting Refresh for two hours has been a lot of fun, but I REALLY need to get some work done, tonight. Night, folks.
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Post by Angel on Jul 31, 2007 2:35:57 GMT -5
G'night.
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Post by Lachryma on Jul 31, 2007 2:47:33 GMT -5
This is a dangerous question, you realize. That's increasingly hard to pin down, as Matt (my co-author) and I have been writing together since we were 14. It doesn't help that we're a bit playful with our writing styles. One book is about a tyrannical wizard-king who is trying to bring about a golden age in spite of his failing health and sanity. The other is a coming of age story that turns certain aspects of the Hero's Journey and traditional fantasy on their heads - such as the hero crossing the threshold from the magical world into the mundane world, instead of the other way around, or the hero beginning with kewl magick powers and gradually losing them as he confronts mortality and adulthood. Matt and I have different influences. Terry Pratchett is there, but we don't write comic fantasy. Tolkien is there, but every fantasy writer says that. David Eddings, Terry Brooks, and Robert Jordan are there, but there are things they do that we would never want to inflict on a reader. George R. R. Martin is one of our new favorites, but we're not really writing that kind of series. I've enjoyed the Harry Potter series, but I have no interest in writing fantasy in a modern setting. In truth, whatever I am reading has some pull over my writing, but it's about mood, not content. When I was reading The Shining, for example, there were a couple scenes I wrote that were more horror than fantasy. Some of what we do is react against devices that we feel are overused by individual authors or by the genre as a whole - prophecies, exposition vending machines (Gandalf, I'm looking at you), over-describing people and places (Jordanizing, as we call it), etc... And I'll stop there. I am ferociously passionate about my writing, but I've learned not to expect other people to be. Thank you, good sir, for your very comprehensive reply! Not that you'll probably ever see this, what with you going to bed now and the many pages of spam that will show up by tomorrow, but oh well! And yeah, Robert Jordan is pretty fething annoying. Do you really need a thousand pages each book and (more then) 11 books to tell your story? And yes, fighting against cliches will always make cool fantasy.  |
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Post by Angel on Jul 31, 2007 3:04:22 GMT -5
REBEL AGAINST OUR CLICHE OVERLORDS!
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Post by IceJedi5 on Jul 31, 2007 3:35:10 GMT -5
I just participated in a habbo raid. I feel like I am finally a man, you too can feel manly. Sign up today!
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Post by asshole doctor™ on Jul 31, 2007 3:43:38 GMT -5
habbo or hobo?
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Post by gregory on Jul 31, 2007 4:24:47 GMT -5
Thank you, good sir, for your very comprehensive reply! Not that you'll probably ever see this, what with you going to bed now and the many pages of spam that will show up by tomorrow, but oh well! And yeah, Robert Jordan is pretty fething annoying. Do you really need a thousand pages each book and (more then) 11 books to tell your story? And yes, fighting against cliches will always make cool fantasy. I wasn't going to bed, but I needed to get some work done before it *was* time for bed. As I finished what I expected to do, tonight, I thought I'd stop by one more time. Weis and Hickman's The Death Gate Cycle (which I sincerely enjoyed) told its story and made its point in 7 books, and the 7th book was shorter than most of the others. Robert Jordan took the last 60 pages of his 6th book and rewrote it as the first 80 pages of his 7th book. That was so unforgivable a sin that I stopped reading the series. I was not encouraged by fans who said things like "nothing happens in the 7th and 8th books, but the 9th book makes it worth reading the other two." If you can spend 2,000 pages writing about nothing, I don't know why I should waste my time. It's okay to have a few loose ends at the end of your story. You don't need to expand your series to 12 books just to make sure you leave no potential plot unused. Tolkien has a lot of problems, but one thing I've always liked about him is that he would make references to things you could tell were huge stories in themselves, but he was satisfied with leaving out the details. If you're horribly curious, you can pick up the dense material that has been published since his death. Almost every chapter of The Simarillion could be a book unto itself, and there are some that I'd love to see as fully realized books, but the dialogue-free format makes it really difficult to get into the stories before they're over. But that's fine by me because believe he never intended for them to be published in that format. He didn't insist that The Lord of the Rings couldn't end until his characters explored the Grey Havens and told the reader all about the history of Feanor, the Simarils, and Morgoth. In any case, now I really *should* be going to bed. |
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Post by Magatsu Taito on Jul 31, 2007 5:50:59 GMT -5
Gregory, you are totally awesome. Terry Pratchett, The Death Gate Cycle and Silmarillion.... I think I love you man... Ok, so I don't, but agree with your views on fantasy a lot it seems.
This is probably a dumb question but have you read Gemmells (?) stuff?
Though I have mostly given up the fantasy now, I'm more into sci-fi atm. A Scanner Darkly... mmm mmm!
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Post by Your Mommy Issues on Jul 31, 2007 8:41:24 GMT -5
4347
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